06 - The Law of The Teaching Process
CHAPTER SIX THE LAW OF THE TEACHING PROCESS
1. Our survey of the teaching art has thus far involved these four considerations: the teacher, the learner, the language, and the lesson. We are now to study these in action, and to observe the conduct of the teacher and his pupil. The previous discussions have already brought these partly into view, but as each of them has its own law, each demands more careful consideration than has yet been given it. In the laws of the teacher and the learner, we found necessarily reflected the actions of both; but an actor and his part are easily separated in thought, and each possesses aspects and characteristics of its own. Following the natural order, the teaching function comes first before us, and we are now to seek its law. The law of the teacher was essentially a law of qualification; the law of teaching is a law of function.
2. Thus far we have considered teaching as the communication of knowledge or experience; more properly, we should say that this is a RESULT of teaching. Whether by telling, demonstrating, or leading pupils to discover for themselves, the teacher is transmitting experience to his pupils; that is his aim and purpose, and his teaching is conditioned by that aim. But the explanation of the work of the teacher in terms of function is to be distinguished from the definition in terms of purpose. The actual work of the teacher consists of the awakening and setting in action the mind of the pupil, the arousing of his self-activities. As already shown, knowledge cannot be passed from mind to mind like objects from one receptacle to another, but must in every case be recognized and rethought and relived by the receiving mind. All explanation and exposition are useless except as they serve to excite and direct the pupil in his own thinking. If the pupil himself does not think, there are no results of the teaching; the words of the teacher are falling upon deaf ears. THE LAW OF TEACHING
3. We are now ready to state the law of teaching: EXCITE AND DIRECT THE SELF-ACTIVITIES OF THE PUPIL, AND AS A RULE TELL HIM NOTHING THAT HE CAN LEARN HIMSELF.
4. The second clause in this law is of sufficient importance to justify its position in the formulation of the law, although it is negatively stated. There are cases in which it may be necessary to disregard this caution in order to save time, or in the case of a very weak or discouraged pupil, or sometimes when intense interest has been aroused and there is a keen demand for information that the teacher can give quickly and effectively, but its violation is almost always a loss which should be compensated by a definite gain. Considered affirmatively, this caution would read: "Make your pupil a discoverer of truth -- make him find out for himself." The great value of this law has been so often and so strongly stated as to demand no further proof. No great writer on education has failed to consider it in some form or another; if we were seeking the educational maxim most widely received among good teachers, and the most extensive in its applications and results, we should fix upon this law. It is the same fundamental truth as the one found in such rules as the following: "Wake up your pupils’ minds"; "Set the pupils to thinking"; "Arouse the spirit of inquiry"; "Get your pupils to work." All these familiar maxims are different expressions of this same law.
5. In discussing the principles of attention, language, and knowledge, we have considered to some extent the operations of the mind. We should now study these further. THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE LAW
6. We can learn without a teacher. Children learn hundreds of facts before they ever see a school, sometimes with the aid of parents or others, often by their own unaided efforts. In the greater part of our acquisitions we are self-taught, and it is quite generally conceded that knowledge is most permanent and best which is dug out by unaided research. Everything, at the outset, must be learned by the discoverer without an instructor, since no instructor knows it. If, then, we can learn without being taught, it follows that the true function of the teacher is to create the most favorable conditions for self-learning. Essentially the acquisition of knowledge must be brought about by the same agencies and through the use of the same methods, whether with or without a teacher.
7. What, then, is the use of schools, and what is the necessity of a teacher? The question is pertinent, but the answer is plain. Knowledge in its natural state lies scattered and confused; it is connected, to be sure, in great systems, but these connections are laws and relations unknown to the beginner, and they are to be learned only through ages of observation and careful study. The school selects for its curriculum what it regards as the most useful of the experiences of the race, organizes these, and offers them to the pupils along with its facilities for learning. It offers to these pupils leisure and quiet for study, and through its books and other materials of education the results of other people’s labors, which may serve as charts of the territories to be explored, and as beaten paths through the fields of knowledge. True teaching, then, is not that which GIVES knowledge, but that which stimulates pupils to GAIN it. One might say that he teaches BEST who teaches LEAST; or that he teaches best whose pupils learn most without being taught directly. But we should bear in mind that in these epigrammatic statements two meanings of the word TEACHING are involved: one, simply telling, the other creating the conditions of real learning.
8. That teacher is a sympathizing guide whose knowledge of the subjects to be studied enables him properly to direct the efforts of the pupil, to save him from a waste of time and strength, from needless difficulties. But no aid of school or teacher can change the operations of the mind, or take from the pupil his need of knowing for himself. The eye must do its own seeing, the ear its own hearing, and the mind its own thinking, however much may be done to furnish objects of sights, sounds for the ear and stimuli for the intelligence. The innate capacities of the child produce the growth of body or mind. "If childhood is educated according to the measure of its powers," said Saint Augustine, "they will continually grow and increase; while if forced beyond their strength, they decrease instead of increasing." The sooner the teacher abandons the notion that he can make his pupils intelligent by hard work upon their passive receptivity, the sooner he will become a good teacher and obtain the art, as Socrates said, of assisting the mind to shape and put forth its own conceptions. It was to his skill in this that the great Athenian owed his power and greatness among his contemporaries, and it was this that gave him his place as one of the foremost of the great teachers of mankind. It is the "forcing process" in teaching which separates parrotlike and perfunctory LEARNING from KNOWING. A boy, having expressed surprise at the shape of the earth when he was shown a globe, was asked: "Did you not learn that in school?" He replied: "Yes. I learned it, but I never knew it."
9. The great aims of education are to acquire knowledge and ideals, and to develop abilities and skills. Our law derives its significance from both of these aims. The pupil must know for himself, or his knowledge will be knowledge in name only. The very effort required in the act of thus learning and knowing may do much to increase the capacity to learn. The pupil who is taught without doing any studying for himself will be like one who is fed without being given any exercise: he will lose both his appetite and his strength.
10. Confidence in our own powers is an essential condition of their successful use. This confidence can be gained only by self-prompted, voluntary, and independent use of these capacities. We learn to walk, not by seeing others walk, but by walking. The same is true of mental abilities.
11. The self-activities or mental powers do not set themselves at work without some motive or stimulus to put them in action. In early life external stimuli are stronger, and in riper years the internal excitants are the ones to which we respond more readily. To the young child the objects of sense -- bright colors, live animals, and things in motion -- are most attractive and exciting. Later in life, the inner facts of thought and feeling are more engaging. The child’s mental life has in it an excess of sensation; the mental life of the adult has more reflection.
12. But whatever the stimulus, the processes of cognition are largely the same. There is the comparison of the new with the old, the alternating analysis and synthesis of parts, wholes, classes, causes, and effects; the action of memory and imagination, the use of judgment and reason, and the effects upon thought of tastes and prejudices as they have been concerned with the previous knowledge and experience of the learner. If thinking does not take place, the teacher has applied the stimuli in vain. He perhaps will wonder that his pupils do not understand, and will very likely consider them stupid and incompetent, or at least lazy. Unfortunately the stupidity is sometimes on the other side, and its sins against this law of teaching in assuming that the teacher can MAKE the pupil learn by dint of vigorous telling, or teaching as he calls it, whereas true teaching only brings to bear on the pupil’s mind certain natural stimuli or excitants. If some of these fail, he must find others, and not rest until he attains the desired result and sees the activity of the child at work upon the lesson.
13. Comenius -1- said, over two hundred years ago, "Most teachers sow plants instead of seeds; instead of proceeding from the simplest principles they introduce the pupil at once into a chaos of books and miscellaneous studies." The figure of the seed is a good one, and is much older than Comenius. The greatest of teachers said: "The seed is the word." The true teacher stirs the ground and sows the seed. It is the work of the soil, through its own forces, to develop the growth and ripen the grain.
[-1- Johann Amos Comenius (1592-1671) was a Moravian clergyman, whose efforts to reform school practices have given him an enduring place in the history of education.]
14. The difference between the pupil who works for himself and the one who works only when he is driven is too obvious to need explanation. The one is a free agent, the other is a machine. The former is attracted by his work, and, prompted by his interest, he works on until he meets some overwhelming difficulty or reaches the end of his task. The latter moves only when he is urged. He sees what is shown him, he hears what he is told, advances when his teacher leads, and stops just where and when the teacher stops. The one moves by his own activities, and the other by borrowed impulse. The former is a mountain stream fed by living springs, the latter a ditch filled from a pump worked by another’s hand.
KNOWLEDGE NECESSARY TO THOUGHT
15. The action of the mind is limited practically to the field of its acquired knowledge. The individual who knows nothing cannot think, for he has nothing to think about. In comparing, imagining, judging, and reasoning, and in applying knowledge to plan, criticize, or execute one’s own thoughts, the mind must necessarily work upon the material in its possession. Hence the power of any object or fact as a mental stimulus depends in each case upon the number of related objects or facts which the individual already knows. A botanist will be aroused to the keenest interest by the discovery of a hitherto unknown plant, but will perhaps care little or nothing for a new stone or a new star. The physician eagerly studies new diseases, the lawyer recent decisions, the farmer new crops, and the mechanic new machines.
16. The infant knows little, and his interest is brief and slight; the adult knows many things, and his interests are deeper, wider, and more persistent. Thoughtfulness deepens and grows more intense with the increase of knowledge. The student of mathematics who has worked long and diligently in his field never finds it dry or tiresome; the wisest student of the Bible finds in its pages the greatest delight. All these illustrations show the principles which underlie our law and prove its value.
17. The two chief springs of interest through which the mind can be aroused are the love of knowledge for its own sake, that is, its cultural value, and the desire for knowledge to be used as a tool in solving problems or obtaining other knowledge. In the former are mingled the satisfaction of the native curiosity which craves to know the real nature and causes of the phenomena around us, the solution of the questionings which often trouble the mind, the relief from apprehensions which ignorance feels in the presence of nature’s mysteries, the sense of power and liberty which knowledge often brings, the feeling of elevation which each new increment of knowledge gives, and the "rejoicing in the truth" because of its own beauty and sublimity, or its moral charm and sweetness, its appeals to our taste for wit and humor, and for the wonderful. All these enter separately or together into the intellectual appetite to which the various forms of knowledge appeal, and which give to reading and study their greatest attraction. Each affords an avenue through which the mind can be reached and roused by the skilful teacher.
18. It is evident that this manifold mental appetite must vary in character and intensity with the tastes and attainments of the pupils. Some love nature and her sciences of observation and experiment; others love mathematics and delight in its problems; still others prefer the languages and literature, and others history and the sciences which deal with the powers, deeds, and destinies of man. Each special preference grows by being fostered, and becomes absorbing as its acquisitions become great. The great masteries and achievements in arts, literature, and science have come from these innate tastes, and in all these "the child is father of the man." In each pupil lies the germ of such tastes -- the springs of such powers -- awaiting the art of the teacher to water the germs and set the springs in motion.
19. The respect for knowledge because of its value as a tool includes the desire for education as a means of livelihood or as a source of better social standing; the felt or anticipated need of some special skill or ability as an artist, lawyer, writer, or some other brain worker; as well as study for the purpose of winning rewards or avoiding punishments. This indirect desire for learning varies with the character and aims of the pupils, but does not increase with attainment unless it ripens, as it may, into the true love of knowledge above described. Its strength depends upon the nature and magnitude of the need which impels the study. The activities aroused for such study go to a self-imposed task and are not very likely to continue their work after the task is done. The rewards and punishments used in school to promote the studying of lessons have just this force and no more. They inspire no generous activity which works for the love of the work and which does not pause when the assigned lesson has been covered. Witness the spirit that pervades every school so taught and so managed. On the other hand, if the true uses of knowledge are constantly pointed out by the teacher and recognized by the child, the time may well come when respect for knowledge because it is useful becomes a real love of knowledge for its own sake.
KNOWLEDGE AND THE FEELINGS
20. Our discussion thus far has taken for granted the intimate and indissoluble connection between the intellect and the feelings, the inseparable union of thought and feeling. To think without feeling would be thinking with a total indifference to the object of thought, which would be absurd; and to feel without thinking would be almost impossible. As most of the objects of thought are objects also of desire or dislike, and therefore objects of choice, it follows that all important action of the intellect has a moral side. This, again, is an assumption that we have made throughout our discussion. The love of knowledge for itself or for its uses is in reality moral, as it implies moral affections and purposes of good or evil. All motives of study have a moral character or connection, in their early steps; hence no education or teaching can be absolutely divorced from morals. The affections come to school with the intellect.
21. This moral consciousness finds its fuller sphere in the recognized domain of duty -- the higher realm of the affections and the other moral qualities. From these come the highest and strongest incentives to study and also the clearest understanding. The teacher should constantly address the moral nature and stimulate moral sentiments, if he wishes to achieve the greatest measure of success.
22. This moral teaching was the chief merit of the work of Pestalozzi, and it is the leading characteristic of the work of all great teachers. Love of country, love of one’s fellows, aspirations for a noble and useful life, love for truth -- these are all motives to which appeal should be made. If these motives are lacking in pupils, the teacher must build them up. THE SELF-ACTIVE MIND
23. It follows from all this that only when the mental powers work freely and in their own way can the product be sure or permanent. No one can know exactly what any mind contains, or how it performs, save as that mind imperfectly reveals it by words or acts, or as we conceive it by reflecting upon our own conscious experience. Just as the digestive organs must do their own work, masticating and digesting whatever food they receive, selecting, secreting, assimilating, and so building bone, muscle, nerve, and all the various tissues and organs of the body, so, too, in the last resort, the mind must perform its function, without external aid, building, as it can, concepts, faith, purposes, and all forms of intelligence and character. As Milton expressed it: The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
24. If the fact of the mind’s autocracy is thus emphasized, it is not for the purpose of belittling the work of the teacher, but only to show more clearly the law which gives to that work all its force and dignity. It is the teacher’s mission to stand at the spiritual gateways of his pupil’s mind, serving as a herald of science, a guide through nature, to summon the minds to their work, to place before them the facts to be observed and studied, and to guide them into the right paths to be followed. It is his by sympathy, by example, and by every means of influence -- by objects for the senses, by facts for the intelligence -- to excite the mind of the pupils, to stimulate their thoughts.
25. The cautionary clause of our law which forbids giving too much help to pupils will be needless to the teacher who clearly sees his proper work. Like a skilful engineer who knows the power of his engine, he chooses to stand and watch the play of the splendid machine and marvel at the ease and vigor of its movements. It is only the unskilled teacher who prefers to hear his own voice in endless talk rather than to watch and direct the course of the thoughts of his pupils.
26. There is no disagreement between this law and the first and third, which so strongly insist upon the teacher’s knowledge of the subject. Without full and accurate knowledge of the subject that the pupil is to learn through his self-active efforts, the teacher certainly cannot guide, direct, and test the process of learning. One may as well say that a general need know nothing of a battlefield because he is not to do the actual fighting, as that a teacher may get on with inadequate knowledge because the pupils must do the studying. As we have said, there are exceptions to the rule that the pupil should be told nothing that he can discover for himself. There are some occasions when the teacher may, for a few moments, become a lecturer and, from his own more extensive experience, give his pupils broader, richer, and clearer views of the field of their work. But in such cases he must take care not to substitute mere telling for true teaching, and thus encourage passive listening where he needs to call for earnest work.
27. The most important stimuli used by nature to stir the minds of men have already been noted. They might all be described as the silent but ceaseless questions which the world and the universe are always addressing to man. The eternal questions of childhood are really the echoes of these greater questions. The object or the event that excites no question will provoke no thought. Questioning is not, therefore, merely one of the devices of teaching, it is really the whole of teaching. It is the excitation of the self-activities to their work of discovering truth. Nature always teaches thus. But it does not follow that every question should be in the interrogative form. The strongest and clearest affirmation may have all the effect of the interrogation, if the mind so receives it. An explanation may be so given as to raise now questions while it answers old ones.
28. The explanation that settles everything and ends all questions, usually ends all thinking also. After a truth is clearly understood, or a fact or principle established, there still remain its consequences, applications, and uses. Each fact and truth thoroughly studied leads to other facts which renew the questioning and demand fresh investigation. The alert and scientific mind is one that never ceases to ask questions and seek answers. The scientific spirit is the spirit of tireless inquiry and research. The present time, so far excelling the past in the development of its arts and sciences, is the time of great questions.
29. As with the world, so with the child. His education begins as soon as he begins to ask questions. It is only when the questioning spirit has been fully awakened, and the habit of raising questions has been largely developed, that the teaching process may embody the lecture plan. The truth asks its own questions as soon as the mind is sufficiently awake. The falling apple had the question of gravitation in it for the mind of Newton; and the boiling teakettle propounded to Watt the problem of a steam engine.
RULES FOR TEACHERS 30. Like our other laws, this one also suggests some practical rules for teaching.
(1)Adapt lessons and assignments to the ages and attainments of the pupils. Very young children will be interested more in whatever appeals to the senses, and especially in activities; the more mature will be attracted to reasoning and to reflective problems. (2)Select lessons which relate to the environment and needs of the pupils. (3)Consider carefully the subject and the lesson to be taught, and find its point of contact with the lives of your pupils. (4)Excite the pupil’s interest in the lesson when it is assigned, by some question or by some statement which will awaken inquiry. Hint that something worth knowing is to be found out if the lesson is thoroughly studied, and then be sure later to ask for the truth to be discovered. (5)Place yourself frequently in the position of a pupil among your pupils, and join in the search for some fact or principle. (6)Repress your impatience which cannot wait for the pupil to explain himself, and which tends to take his words out of his mouth. He will resent it, and will feel that he could have answered had you given him time. (7)In all class exercises aim to excite constantly fresh interest and activity. Start questions for the pupils to investigate out of class. The lesson that does not culminate in fresh questions ends wrong. (8)Observe each pupil to see that his mind is not wandering so as to forbid its activities being bent to the lesson in hand. (9)Count it your chief duty to awaken the minds of your pupils, and do not rest until each child shows his mental activity by asking questions. (10)Repress the desire to tell all you know or think about the lesson or subject; if you tell something by way of illustration or explanation, let it start a fresh question. (11)Give the pupil time to think, after you are sure that his mind is actively at work, and encourage him to ask questions when puzzled. (12)Do not answer too promptly the questions asked, but restate them, to give them greater force and breadth, and often answer with new questions to secure deeper thought. (13)Teach pupils to ask What? Why? and How? -- the nature, cause, and method of every fact or principle taught them; also Where? When? By Whom? and What of it? -- the place, time, actors, and consequences of events. (14)Recitations should not exhaust a subject, but leave additional work to stimulate the thought and the efforts of the pupils.
VIOLATIONS AND MISTAKES 31. Many a teacher neglecting these rules kills all interest in his class, and wonders how he did it.
(1)The chief and almost constant violation of this law of teaching is the attempt to force lessons by simply telling. "I have told you ten times, and yet you don’t know!" exclaims a teacher of this sort, who is unable to remember that knowing comes by thinking, not by being told. (2)It is another mistake to complain of memory for not keeping what it never held. If facts or principles are to be remembered, the attention must be concentrated upon them at the time, and there must be a conscious effort to remember. (3)A third violation of the law comes from the haste with which teachers require prompt and rapid recitations in the very words of the book; and, if a question is asked in class, to refuse the pupils time to think. If the pupil hesitates and stops for lack of thought, or in apparent lack of memory, the fault lies in yesterday’s teaching which shows its fruit today; but if it comes from the slowness of the pupil’s thinking, or from the real difficulty of the subject, then time should be given for additional thought; and, if the recitation period will not permit it, let the answer hold over until the next time.
32. It is to this hurried and unthinking lesson-saying that we owe the superficial and impractical character of so much of our teaching. Instead of learning thoroughly the material of our lessons, we endeavor to learn them only so as to recite them promptly. If faults of this character are prevalent in our day schools, how much more serious are they in the Sunday schools? If the lessons of the Sunday schools are to carry over into the lives of the pupils by purifying and exalting their thoughts and making them wise in the religious beliefs taught them, the instruction must not be mere telling, but must be accompanied by the better methods used in the regular schools.
33. How different are the results when this great law of teaching is properly followed! The stimulated self-activities operate in the correct manner, and the classroom is transformed under their power into a busy laboratory. The pupils become thinkers -- discoverers. They master great truths, and apply them to the great questions of life. They invade new fields of knowledge. The teacher merely leads the march. Their reconnaissance becomes a conquest. Skill and power grow with their exercise. Through this process, the students find out what their minds are for, and become students of life.